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Jewish World Review Feb. 1, 2008 / 25 Shevat 5768 America in flux By Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We're at that lull in the presidential primary season when pundits try to make the most of the least election returns. Iowa and New Hampshire are in, plus Barack Obama's landslide in South Carolina and now Florida's votes. Attempting to judge the mood of the electorate at this early stage of the primary season and ordeal is like trying to get salt out of a clogged shaker and then reading the candidates' fortunes from just the few grains that spill out.
Americans are in one of our uncharacteristic periods of drift — or what feels like it. The presidential race hasn't fully jelled, and every lover of suspense and newspaperman enamored of good copy can hope it won't for a while — not even after all those primaries on Mardi Gras, which this year is literally Fat Tuesday for the country's politicians. Twenty-two states — count 'em, 22 — will be holding presidential primaries that maybe fateful day.
Meanwhile, not that it matters much, an unpopular lame-duck president has given his State of the Union message to no great effect. One thinks of the last few months of the Eisenhower administration, when all eyes were on the next president, not the underestimated old man in the White House. Or, to cite a more exact parallel, the last year of the Truman administration, when a still feisty president with even less support in the polls than George W. Bush was hewing to his course. The country could hardly wait to be free of him and chart a new course, or at least welcome a new captain aboard the good ship America. It would be left to history to redeem his presidency, as he always knew it would.
But what appears drift may be only flux as Americans sort things out before moving ahead, as usual, in all directions — economically, socially, militarily, politically and of course technologically, this being the land of the free, home of the brave, and natural habitat of tinkerers. The only thing about the future one can be sure of is that it'll be interesting.
How can you tell the difference between the usual empty assertions in a presidential campaign and those of any substance? Simple. Just imagine what the presidential candidate attacking some rival would have to say if said rival prevailed — and asked the candidate to run for vice president on the same ticket. Suppose, say, that Mitt Romney turns out to be John McCain's running mate in the end. What would happen to all of Mitt's attempts to paint his opponent as nothing but a Democrat in Republican clothing? He'd doubtless ask the rest of us to overlook his earlier, incautious statements as nothing but "campaign rhetoric." That's the term Wendell Willkie used when, after being defeated by FDR in 1940, he teamed up with FDR to prepare the country for war. Unity has a way of returning even after the most hard-fought campaigns.
Every four years, the country throws a continental conniption fit before the gracious concession speeches are made and the next president is given a fresh start and maybe even a brief honeymoon with public opinion. The experience can prove therapeutic in the end, like making up after a lover's quarrel. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
